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Articles tagged with UKIP

Conventionally, a privately-educated, tweed- wearing, pub-frequenting politician would be an electoral disaster. However, Farage’s recent Party Election Broadcast, in which he can be seen with a pint of beer in a dimly-lit pub, has been greatly successful. Why? It indicates that he is different from Westminster’s polished, well-educated political class.

In recent years, Cameron and Farage’s rivalry has been well-publicised, whereas Miliband and Farage’s has received less attention. The plummeting support of the Conservative party

Now we’ve all had a chance to reflect on UKIP’s local election triumphs, it seems the one thing that commentators across the board have been able to agree on is that Farage's success reflects an elevated wave of euroscepticism among the British population. What to do about EU membership has, as a direct consequence, become one of the most important debates in modern politics, one that has caused no end of confusion in Tory ranks.

I’ll admit off the bat that the article that follows is an odd one: I’m about to offer a political party advice that I hope to God they ignore. Nigel Farage and UKIP have been in the headlines a great deal of late, from the Guardian discussing Nigel Farage's saloon bar insurgency to the Telegraph publishing Farage’s declaration that UKIP could have its first MP within months.

Three Labour by-election holds in three very traditional Labour seats; low turnout on a very cold November day; resentment of the Government reflected in a traditional mid-term kicking. So far, so politics as normal. Looked at through traditional political filters, there’s not an awful lot to see here.

Of course those filters might be right. History is littered with glittering moments for small political parties declaring a breakthrough at by-elections before crashing under

Nothing excites UKIP quite like a defection, whether its an MEP, a Councillor or the droves of young Conservatives whose shifting allegiance seems to be behind a dramatic rise in the number of young UKIP members. What does this mean for the Tory party’s youth wing and what does it mean for the party more broadly?

Gawain Towler, UKIP’s long-serving spokesman and advocate, remembers what it was like before Nigel Farage’s brand of

Liberal Democrats, and before them Social Democrats and Liberals too, are well used to a surge in poll figures seeing them overtake another party and so generate a flurry of excited predictions about the future of British politics.

Yet more often that they would wish, such surges have often subsequently largely or completely receded. So it is no surprise that Liberal Democrat insiders have been reacting with calm analysis to the smattering of

A YouGov poll has revealed that the Lib Dems, that once-proud member of the elite 'top three' group of politicial parties, has fallen out of favour with the electorate and has now slumped to fourth. Against all the odds, the ‘fruitcake’ party, UKIP, have pipped the Liberals at the post – much to the disappointment of Nick Clegg.

While mayoral candidate Brian Paddick busies himself with a vanity trip around the capital, his

They say the first step is to admit that you have a problem. But when it comes to politics, it’s never quite that straightforward.

This week has seen something of a confused Tory backlash in the face of the threat that no one in the party wants to talk about: UKIP. Conservative apparatchiks have been doing the rounds in the papers and on the blogs dismissing out of hand the suggestion that the

‘Closet racists’, ‘gadflies’, ‘fruitcakes’, and on the ‘periphery of politics’… few politicians have had time for Nigel Farage’s UK Independence Party since it burst on to the political scene some 18years ago.

Michael Howard damned it, John Major dismissed it and now David Cameron has ignored it.

But to write the eurosceptics off will be a mistake that will cost the unpopular leader support of the rank and file.

This morning, David Campbell Bannerman MEP resigned from UKIP to join the Conservative Party. He will now sit as a member of the European Conservatives and Reformists Group in the European Parliament.

I caught up with him briefly over lunch. He told me that he hasn't spoken to UKIP leader Nigel Farage today, that the Conservatives have not offered him "anything special" to come over and that his former party's backing of AV

David Campbell Bannerman, MEP and former deputy leader of UKIP, has defected to the Conservative Party.

In a statement that has just gone out, Campbell Bannerman said:

“I have been pleased with the robust stance taken by David Cameron and Conservative MEPs over the EU budget negotiations and I believe that it is Conservative MEPs who are working hard to defend Britain's interests.”

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